


A Cuffed Encounter

by TheWritingMagi



Series: 2000 Words or Less [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Original Universe, Some Fluff, Zine, you know how it goes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-10 15:23:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20853980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWritingMagi/pseuds/TheWritingMagi
Summary: Hunk doesn't want any adventure, but adventure finds him anyways.Part 6 of the Song of Heroes zine!





	A Cuffed Encounter

Sitting down heavily in the restaurant chair, Hunk huffed an exhausted sigh. The trek up the eastern side of the mountain base had been difficult enough without the blustering winds; carts only went so far up the private path before the vernacular commercial districts ended and became the illustrious domed homes the elite members of Mauga Tuai enjoyed.

But a storm was coming in, promising a good thick sheet of sand overnight. Once the cart he’d taken was high enough up the mountainside to see the beautiful East Side, Hunk had opted to stay the night at an inn in the last commercial district before heading up. The sand wouldn’t be as bad up on the East Side the next day; besides, by the time he headed back down to the West Side for home the clearing crews would have swept up the main roads.

Another sigh of exasperation escaped him. He wished one of his parents had taken this consultation job instead.  _ Just watch, I’ll be stuck up here for the next few days because… _

Ugh, right. Because there was an excitable little Luntian girl staying with his family, pestering him to go with her on some quest. The consultation job had been a perfect way to escape the Luntian girl when she had started spouting about some mental connection she had with some god.

And he’d drop dead before he told her that he also had some mystical voice gallivanting around in his head, whispering things about finding it and finding  _ them _ . Whatever it or them were.

“Just the special please,” Hunk told the incredibly silent waiter when they came by. Some good food would clear his head and raise his spirits, which he especially needed after all the turbulent disruptions to his daily life.

Once he had filled his belly and began thinking of how nice a warm bed would be right about then, he began rummaging for his coin purse in order to pay, give a nice tip to the waiter (who seemed to be the only one working), and head out for the only inn he had spied around the corner.

And his coin purse was missing. Of course it was.

After an angry lecture from the waiter (for the lack of tip) and a disturbingly angrier berating from the chef (for the waste of time), Hunk was suddenly whisked from his seat and deposited into the kitchen, and what he found in there was not something he was ready for.

It was bustling in comparison to the dining room, with cooks and waiters who all looked suspiciously similar scurrying around as the chef that had given Hunk an earful shouted directions menacingly. It surprised Hunk that he hadn’t heard the chef while he was eating: he was ear-splittingly loud and didn’t seem to let up.

“Why, hello there!”

Startled, Hunk let out a yelp. The way the voice cut through the incessant noise so sharply was disconcerting, and an ostentatious mustached man wasn’t at all what he expected to be the owner.

The man grinned unceasingly for a few moments, and Hunk couldn’t help but shy away from the bright face, unnerved. “Um, hello?” he finally replied, returning a forced smile. Despite his distaste for the distracting foreign environment, Hunk focused on the man; the artistically dirtied apron gave away that he worked in the kitchen, but the curious attire beneath spoke of a non-native to the Dilaw Plains trying to fit in, and the material he wore looked ancient or at least not popular enough for Hunk to recognize. And by the gods, what  _ exquisitely _ groomed facial hair.

While he was on the facial features, the tattoos beneath the man’s eyes were out of place as well; Azra’ designs perhaps? He had seen similar glowing marks on merchants from the oceanic nation in the past.

The man took a theatrical step forward and hooked his arm around Hunk’s shoulders. “The ol’ dine and dash, eh?” he asked as if it were only between the two of them. His blue eyes were inquisitive and full of mirth.

Hunk sighed. “Not intentionally, I swear,” he feebly defended, resigning himself to his fate. “I guess I’m supposed to work back here to pay off the meal?”

With a grin, the man jumped back again and motioned to the dish pit in the corner where daunting mounds upon mounds of dirty dishes, utensils and kitchenware were stacked: a true trial for any who would have to undertake it. Hunk gulped, a little less worried about his coin purse and more about himself.

“Let’s get to work!” the man exclaimed, pulling Hunk to the dishwashing station. “If you must know,” he went on as if Hunk had asked, “I am Coran, a lowly traveller from the north! I was on my way east when I realized I had no idea where I was!”

By then, Hunk tried to tune out the man, Coran, in order to get through the dishes as quickly as possible. “Uh-huh,” he mumbled, grabbing a plate. Old and moldy food was caked on and would likely require a few minutes of scrubbing to get off. Another sigh found its way to his lips.

“ _ So _ , I came to ask for directions at this fine establishment!” Hunk nodded as Coran continued, vaguely wondering why he would come all the way to Mauga Tuai in order to get directions; the city was as far west as one could get while still being in the Dilaw Plains. Curious. Curious indeed.

“They  _ refused _ me directions unless I could trade for them! Unfortunately, I have nothing of monetary value on my person to trade with, so my manual labour had to do.” Coran swiped a cup clean suspiciously quickly and put it aside, earning a squint from Hunk, who was still trying to get what he assumed was far overcooked cheese off his first plate.

“They forced you to wash dishes in exchange for  _ directions? _ ” Hunk asked incredulously. Coran gave him a forlorn nod, cleaning another dish with inhuman speed. “I thought you actually worked here… Well, I guess that explains how many dishes there are.” Hunk continued to scrub the plate, bubbles amassing, but frowned. Why would a restaurant not hire an actual dishwasher? Had they just fired theirs when Coran came around and saw an opportunity?

Curiouser and curiouser.

“So, you’re from the north?” Hunk then ventured, now interested in this oddity of a man. “Are you from Azra’? You don’t particularly look from Luntian…”

Coran paused, a thoughtful gleam in his eyes. “Very,  _ very _ far north Azra’,” he finally imparted, giving Hunk a wink. “I’m no seaman, so I’ve stuck to the inland all my life! And yourself, Hunk?”

“Oh, I’m from Mauga Tuai, born and raised,” Hunk stated proudly, and just as he was about to go on about how his family had lived at the base of Mauga Tuai for close to fifteen generations, he realized something. “Hey wait, how to you know my-”

“What does your family do for a living?” Coran pressed on, the inquisitive tone returning as he gave Hunk a toothy grin. “Are they jewelers perchance? I’ve met a lot of those here, and they all have similar headpieces to yourself. Is that a defining feature of jeweler families? I rarely come to the Dilaw Plains, you see, so much of the culture is still a mystery to me. If I can remember correctly, though, cultural practices have hardly changed in almost a millennium!”

Hunk balked at the sheer amount of words Coran spouted at him in such a short time. He tried to grapple onto something he had said and tried to reply as quick as he could. “Well, yes, I suppose our circlets are indicative of our position… My family isn’t of a very high rank in the jeweling community though, so we only have these gold bands with the pendant.” He motioned to the one set upon the crown of his head.

“Ah, well, I suppose that’s how it goes sometimes,” Coran commented brightly, laughing heartily as he looked at his own tattered clothing. Hunk couldn’t help but laugh as well.

“What brought you into this place this evening, my friend?” the Azra’ man then asked, continuing on with his cleaning and Hunk following suit. “On an adventure like myself perhaps?”

The Luntian girl, Pidge, leapt into Hunk’s mind.  _ “Come on, it’ll be an adventure! Don’t you Plains people have adventures?!” _

Hunk shook the memory aside. “Absolutely not,” he replied, laughing at the preposterous notion that  _ he _ , Hunk of Mauga Tuai, would be on some heroic quest. “Adventures don’t happen around here. The folks of the Plains stick to the sands and mountains. I was only on a consultation job, but the sand storm forced me to stop for the night.”

Coran raised a bushy eyebrow at that. “What, never thought of going on an adventure? Maybe you’ve never had anyone to go along with you?”

“You don’t have anybody with you,” Hunk retorted.

The other sighed and nodded at that, and a genuine distraught look crossed his bright features. “I did once, but that was a long time ago, a time when the world was a different place.” His eyes locked with Hunk’s and again, a strange feeling filled him as Coran watched him closely. The Azra’ man didn’t seem human to begin with, and Hunk was becoming more and more sure about that with every unearthly glance and movement.

“But perhaps a paladin of Voltron could help me.”

Confused and just a little uncomfortable, Hunk tried to wave off the comment and continue with the dish cleaning. As he did, he quickly glanced from Coran down to the water, only to notice something else that confirmed his suspicions.

“Woah, woah,  _ woah! _ ” Hunk cried, eyes wide as he dropped the plate and cloth from his hands. “How do you have these?!”

He grabbed Coran’s wrists, suddenly meticulous as his hands fell into the practiced movement of a jeweler. Upon the cuffs of the odd man’s sleeves were an identical pair of Balmera crystals in the shape of cufflinks, glinting brightly in the candle light. How had he not noticed these earlier?! Balmera crystal was one of the most rare - if not the rarest - substances in Karthulia, and it was even rarer to see it used in such a casual way. The wealth required to craft such fine specimens of the crystal was… Hunk couldn’t even wrap his head around it.

Coran grinned, and said, “Allow me to impart some advice to you, my young friend.” Taking his hands back, he clapped them on Hunk’s shoulders tightly, stealing the craftsman’s attention again. “You won’t get this opportunity again, Hunk. Anyone would be scared of what’s on the other side of that voice, but wouldn’t you rather  _ know? _ This may be your only chance to get off this dusty mountain.”

For a moment, Hunk couldn’t think. The only words that came out of his gaping mouth were, “But I like this dusty mountain.”

Coran laughed, long and happily. “So do I, Hunk, so do I. That just means you have something to protect in the coming days.” He leaned close, winking as he murmured, “It’s good to know the princess will be protected by such a valiant young man.”

Before Hunk could speak, Coran spun him around and began marching him back into the dining room. “Well, I believe your debt has been paid! Time for you to head out and finish up that consultation of yours! Best wishes, and I hope you enjoyed the meal!”

“Wait!” Hunk cried when they reached the entrance of the restaurant. “How can you just decide I worked off the meal? I thought you were stuck here too!”

“Did I?” Coran feigned surprise, and Hunk found himself out in the sandy street all of the sudden. “Actually, I own this place! And I’m sure you only misplaced your purse, so I didn’t want to make you work for too long!”

“What-”

And with that, the door shut, leaving Hunk in darkness.

He had to stand there for a few minutes, utterly flabbergasted at the turn of events. It was going to take a while to really sink in. In the meantime, Hunk looked around the ground outside the restaurant in order to see if he had truly misplaced that purse of his.

He paused at the familiar jingle. Groaning, Hunk reached into his robe and pulled out his coin purse. It had been on him this  _ whole time _ . Of course it had.

Hunk started down the street. The inn would have to be his next stop now, so he pulled open the purse to shake out some coins and…

One of the Balmera crystal cufflinks tumbled into his hand, alongside a note.

_ I wish you good luck, Hunk of Mauga Tuai. Don’t be afraid of the outside world; it is a beautiful place, just as beautiful as your mountain. _

~

On the way back down the mountain the next day, now hungry for answers far more than for food, he returned to Coran’s mysterious restaurant.

But nothing was left but a drafty hovel, and no trace of Coran.

Perhaps it truly was time for an adventure then. And maybe the voice could be more helpful than just saying,  _ “Find me…” _


End file.
